


Card House Dreamer

by sidnihoudini



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-30
Updated: 2007-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>1:29 p.m.</i>
</p><p>“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Patrick huffs, breaking into a full jog as he passes by the sampler sized detergent dispenser. Pete is waiting outside, impatiently at that, with his face pressed against the window, and Hemingway’s leash wrapped around one hand. The other is blocking the sun from his face. “Please don’t be gone, please don’t be…”</p><p>When he gets to the washing machine with the empty, bright orange and IKEA manufactured laundry hamper sitting on top of it, he throws the little door open, and peers in.</p><p>It doesn’t look like anyone’s rummaged through it. Yet.</p><p>“It’s good,” Patrick says to the window, even though he knows Pete can’t hear him. When the aforementioned raises his eyebrows and holds one hand up in a ‘what the fuck’ kind of gesture, Patrick sends an ‘O.K.’ thumbs up towards the window.</p><p>Pete grins and presses the front of his pants up against the window pane for fun, laughing at the wry look that Patrick sends him as he takes a step back and almost bumps into someone walking down the sidewalk behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Card House Dreamer

"I beat the internet,” Pete muses. He punctuates his admission with each thump of his foot against the front of the dryer he’s perched himself on, and seems pretty into the rhythm even though most of his concentration is currently funneled into the waxy sheen of his apple. When Patrick snorts and heaves another basket full of clothes up onto the counter, Pete looks up, grinning wide. “The end guy is pretty hard.”

Patrick throws a couple handfuls of stained t-shirts and dirty socks into the coin operated machine, and snickers. “So was that before or after you conquered the American Dream?”

“I didn’t conquer it, baby,” Pete grins, wolfish teeth showing. He talks through a mouthful of apple core and skin. “I _lived_ it.”

Rolling his eyes, Patrick knees the washer door closed, and digs around in his pockets for a couple of quarters. He’ll be lucky if he finds one.

“Yeah, you lived it alright,” He smirks, fishing out a handful of change to pick through. Half of it turns out to be lint, and an empty book of matches. As he does this, Pete slides down off of the dryer, and stands leggy, grinning with a limp wrist and half eaten apple. “Then you died and came back to life, right? Rose again?”

Pete leans across the washer Patrick’s feeding the miscellany of coins he’s aiming to validate as a quarter into, and raises his eyebrows.

“Well, have you heard the good news?” He asks.

The left side of Patrick’s face warms with Pete’s breath.

“No,” He says, humoring, as he glances to the side – glances at Pete’s eyes.

Pete grins, and sets his half eaten apple down against the seventies-yellow top of the dryer. It’s vibrating under his palms.

“Jesus Christ has risen,” He smirks. Patrick grimaces, and picks up the laundry basket that is mostly empty, save for a stray sock and a still wrapped stick of gum.

He’ll risk having their clothes get stolen, as long as he doesn’t have to wait around all afternoon, watching t-shirts and underwear tangle in the spin cycle, leaving soap stains all over the front of the washing machine door.

.

Hemingway is tied up outside, leash knotted around a bike rack covered in chipped green paint and bird shit. As soon as he sees Pete he perks up, fully ignoring Patrick’s presence as he gets rubbed behind the ears by the person who Patrick refers to as his ‘one and only.’

(“He _likes_ you, he’s just… cautious,” Pete had reasoned, a couple months ago, when he had walked in on Patrick wielding a burnt spatula, cornered up against the kitchen counter while Hemingway sat on the floor in front of him, growling. 

When Patrick had gone on to say something like, ‘the thing wants to annihilate me!’, Pete had interrupted with, “Patrick the first thing you did when you met him was hit him in the nose with a ball.”

“It was an accident!” Patrick had insisted, dropping his spatula machete when he saw that Pete had managed to calm the beast with a mere scratch between the shoulders. “I was just trying to make friends!”)

Pete stoops down to untie the dogs leash, apple bit between his teeth like a cartoon pig ready to roast. As he does so, Patrick fiddles around with his watch just long enough to set the timer to half an hour. Plenty of time for two rinse cycles to run through, he figures, plenty of time for them to wander their way back so they can make the transfer between wet and dry status.

Sometimes Patrick likes to make daily household chores sound like a CIA operation. And really, he’s pretty much okay with that.

“Why do you bother with that thing?” Pete laughs, tossing his now browned apple core into the closest bush. “You know it runs fifteen minutes fast.”

Patrick frowns, and taps on the clock face with the tip of his finger. Ticking resumes.

“I’ll just compensate. If it’s twelve thirty now, I set the alarm to ring at one, which means… if it’s fifteen minutes…” He trails off and looks up into the potted plant looming over them, hanging off of a street lamp. “When it gets to one fifteen, it’ll really only be… one.”

Laughing, Pete shakes his head and tries to untangle Hemingway’s leash one-handed as they start down the sidewalk, walking hip to hip.

“Look, I already took seventh grade math, and I failed it,” He shrugs, arm jerking when Hemingway lurches forward, charging after a piece of paper caught in the wind, flipping across the sidewalk. He’s usually partial to used Kleenex and empty toilet paper rolls, but really he’ll settle for any recyclable product. “So don’t pull your mind trickery equations on me.”

Patrick laughs, and almost trips over a crack in the sidewalk.

“I just don’t want our clothes to get stolen.”

.

_1:29 p.m._

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Patrick huffs, breaking into a full jog as he passes by the sampler sized detergent dispenser. Pete is waiting outside, impatiently at that, with his face pressed against the window, and Hemingway’s leash wrapped around one hand. The other is blocking the sun from his face. “Please don’t be gone, please don’t be…”

When he gets to the washing machine with the empty, bright orange and IKEA manufactured laundry hamper sitting on top of it, he throws the little door open, and peers in.

It doesn’t look like anyone’s rummaged through it. Yet.

“It’s good,” Patrick says to the window, even though he knows Pete can’t hear him. When the aforementioned raises his eyebrows and holds one hand up in a ‘what the fuck’ kind of gesture, Patrick sends an ‘O.K.’ thumbs up towards the window.

Pete grins and presses the front of his pants up against the window pane for fun, laughing at the wry look that Patrick sends him as he takes a step back and almost bumps into someone walking down the sidewalk behind him.

.

Pete’s in the middle of folding a stack of t-shirts – he figures that working one confusing summer at the GAP had its perks.

(“It wasn’t confusing,” Patrick usually argues, when Pete says that out loud. “It was like, eight months ago, you had no rent money, and anyways, we got to screw in the dressing room.”

Pete generally fakes tears and wipes at the corner of one eye. “I just had so much inner turmoil back then.”

“Yeah.” For whatever reason, Patrick is usually half naked during this conversation and drying shower water off of the backs of his knees. “I remember it being a _really_ difficult time for you.”)

Patrick’s concentrating hard, and pouring dish detergent into the little funnel in the washing machine. A solution cheaper than the dispense-o packets of Sunlight, or whatever the fuck it was that his mom used to use on his grass stains.

“Stay where you are, poor beast! This is no world for you, stay in your forest, and keep your trees green, and keep your friends protected…” Pete stops folding just long enough to dramatically kick one leg up, and throw a hand into the air. “And good luck to you! For you, are the last!”

He knows this one. Pete won the last round by a half point and _Creepshow 2_ , but Patrick can’t afford to lose this one. 

“Uh,” He pinches the bridge of his nose. He knows it, damnit, it’s, it’s – “The Last Unicorn!” He exclaims, eyes popping open. “I knew it!”

Pete grins crooked with half his mouth, and looks back down to the laundry, remorsefully admitting defeat. “Damn. Okay, yeah.”

“Okay, um. Oh, oh. I know,” Patrick clears his throat, and lowers the pitch of his voice a little. “I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.”

Pete snorts, and drops a threadbare NSYNC (it’s _funny_ , Pete had countered, when he’d seen Patrick’s face and initial reaction in the aisle of the Salvation Army children’s clothing section, _ironic_ , he’d continued to snicker) t-shirt onto the pile. “Too easy. Labyrinth, duh.”

“Go,” Patrick frowns.

Grinning wide, Pete taps his fingers against the wooden bench he’s sprawled himself and their clothing over. “She’s not that kind of gi—“

“Why, does she have a penis?” Patrick interrupts, whipping the side of Pete’s shoulder with a wet sock that he’s already lost the partner to. “Revenge of the Nerds. Way too easy. Way, way too easy.”

Pete laughs, and rubs a hand over the spot on his side that Patrick whipped.

“That _hurt,_ ” He manages, trying to sound sincere. Patrick rolls his eyes but can’t hide his smirk. “And okay then, big shot. Go.”

Eyebrows raised, Patrick nods, and tosses the wet sock into the basket.

“I’m a freshmen in my fourth year of college at UCLA,” He starts, leaning forward so he and Pete are almost face to face. “Just trying to fulfill my dream of being a Veterinarian, because I love kids.”

Pete opens his mouth to answer. Closes it, and looks into the space over Patrick’s head so he can try and think. Just as Patrick is beginning to make celebratory noises, Pete manages to squawk, “No wait, I know it, it’s, it’s…”

“Earth Girls Are Easy!” Patrick howls, throwing his arms up. “I win!”

When he dissolves into a fit of maniacal laughter, Pete frowns and goes back to folding his pile of t-shirts.

He worked at the _GAP_ , for christ’s sake.

.

They’re walking the two blocks that separate the Laundromat from the basement suite they’ve been renting off this Asian couple for almost a year.

“Why do I always have to haul the tub home?” Patrick complains, his arms wrapped around the huge basket of laundry. It’s so big his fingers barely meet on the other side, and maybe Pete would help him out… if it wasn’t so amusing to watch.

Pete vaguely gestures to the ground in front of them. “I have the dog.”

“You bring the dog as an excuse,” Patrick wheezes.

Hiding a grin behind the apple smelling sleeve of his hoodie, Pete shakes his head.

“Not true.”

.

The front door pops open and slams hard against the plasterboard wall, little chunks of terrible craftsmanship hitting the floor, most likely to be met with an untimely demise somewhere inside of a curious dog’s mouth.

“Key’s stuck in the door,” Patrick manages, before taking a sharp left and disappearing down the crooked hallway. Pete leaves the door open and lets the summer air in, but twists the keys out of the lock and pockets them.

Pete bends down to take Hemingway’s leash off. He’s panting and slightly out of breath, so he might not be the most athletic dog ever, but he’s pretty hardcore looking. Pete likes that in a mammal. 

“Dump that shit on the bed, let’s go get some food,” Pete yells, stringing the leash over the back of the couch. “Pizza? Homer’s?”

Hemingway lumbers across the floor at a slow clip, stopping to sniff some piece of stray clothing that was forgotten in The Great Laundry Find of Earlier That Morning.

“If you pay,” Patrick calls back, from somewhere inside the depths of their bedroom. “I just spent my last two-fifty cleaning your underwear.”

When the dog starts nosing his empty food dish, Pete follows him over to the little kitchen in-suite, re-fills the water bowl, and dumps half of the Purina bag on the tiled floor next to it.

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice, then, do I?” Pete calls, hoisting himself up onto the counter, watching the back of Hemingway’s head as he almost chokes on the kibble rapidly disappearing from the floor.

Patrick makes his grand reappearance with a new hat, and his sunglasses.

“Not really,” He grins.

.

Patrick’s weary about the little hole in the wall pizza place that Pete says he discovered a couple blocks from their house. There are five pre-made pizzas rotating slow on the hot plates displayed in the front case, and they look greasy enough to sink ships. Angry pirate ships, even.

“Put some cheese on there.” Pete is leaning against the front of the order counter, directing the chick concocting their pizza. He’s also doing this terrible thing where he balances himself with his crotch against whatever foreign surface. To Patrick, it’s almost as distracting as the fish odor leaking out of the back room. “Yeah, and some, uh… onions? Yeah, onions. Some pine apple… aw, yeah.”

Propping himself up against the display case with one elbow and a hip, Patrick watches the cashier ring the order through. Four fifty for a large sized pizza. He has a sinking feeling that they’re getting exactly what they’ve paid for.

Or… what Pete is paying for.

.

“That shit is nasty,” Patrick frowns, tossing his slice back into the box.

They’re in some dumpy park on the waterfront, spread out over summer dewed grass and under a sky that’s already beginning to spit stars. Pete’s downed three and a half slices so far, Patrick can’t even make his way through the first.

“It’s fine,” Pete shrugs, picking off a not yet fully melted portion of cheese.

Patrick knots his eyebrows up in this way that makes Pete’s stomach do the same.

“Oh, you sure about that?” He asks, nose wrinkled up at the top.

 _Nope_ , Pete wants to admit, looking full into Patrick’s face, and the greasy slice of pizza balanced on the curve of his hand is almost forgotten. _I’m not sure at all._

“Sure I am,” He says instead, taking another ache-inducing bite.

.

“What Jefferson was trying to say, is…” Pete sits down on the edge of the mattress. They’ve been getting closer to scoring a box spring now that they’ve both got pretty decent jobs, but this is good enough for now. “We left that England place because it was bogus, and if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves, pronto,” He looks up at Patrick as he comes out of the adjoined bathroom, face lit by the TV screen and the front panel of Pete’s cell phone, charging on the floor next to the mattress. “We’ll just be bogus, too.”

Patrick scratches the back of his neck with one hand, and straightens out the waistband of his underwear with the other.

“Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Um… Ah, okay – only steers and queers come from Texas, and you don’t look like no steer!”

Spread halfway across the mattress with no shirt and little else, Pete laughs defenseless for a moment, eyes closing, head back against the thick blanket. Even in summer, there’s always a thick blanket on their bed.

“Full Metal Jacket. Appropriate,” He snickers, folding his legs underneath the covers, folding the covers back up and over him. “What’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing in the sixth dimension?”

Patrick laughs, and stoops down to locate the television remote underneath a pile of laundry (clean, thank you) that’s propped up against the wall. “Forbidden Zone… that was a good one, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Pete snickers, kicking his legs out, accidentally toeing Hemingway’s back.

Patrick kneels down and turns the TV on manually, because everything works on the remote, except for the power buttons and volume. They should probably look into upgrading their electronics.

“That man right there is my brother,” Patrick says, half-spinning on one knee, getting a rug burn from the carpet on his bare skin. “And if he doesn’t get to watch People’s Court in about thirty seconds, he’s gonna throw a fit right here on your porch.”

Rolling his eyes, Pete leans back on his arms, and answers. “Rainman. Too easy.”

“I know,” Patrick laughs, getting up from the floor.

Pete’s got two options, now. He could go with a classic quote from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which never fails to baffle Patrick, or –

“Hello, snotface,” Pete grins, eyeing Patrick still standing in front of the TV. “Yuck, what happened to you? You’re all older, you’re even uglier… look, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to be sick all over you. Immediately. Lie down.”

Laughing, Patrick flips the remote around like he’s a gunslinger, and drops himself down onto the mattress. He lands hard (no box spring, someone snickers in the back of his mind, then calls him a dumbass) but doesn’t mind too much.

“Drop Dead Fred,” He says, raising his eyebrows, “Was released in 1991. This is ‘Classic 80s Movies’ for two-hundred, Alex Trebek.”

 _You win again_ , Pete almost says, leaning forward with this little smile on his face. _Again and again and…_

.

The next morning, Pete is standing ankle deep in turquoise colored flip-flops and dewy grass. His hands are folded under each arm as he waits for Hemingway to settle on a spot that he feels confident in, but he can’t help bouncing up and down on his knees a little.

“Hurry up, hurry up,” He chants, shuffling a bit from foot to foot.

The dog takes a bite out of the morning wet grass, and sneezes all over Pete’s bare toes. Before he can _ew_ or even make a half assed attempt to wipe it off -- 

“You’re wearing my damn uniform!” Patrick screeches, from somewhere near the vicinity of the house, most likely standing half naked in the frame of the front door.

Pete glances down at whatever shirt it was that he pulled on before deciding to brave the gloomy morning air, and pulls at it with his fingers to see what the front reads. The little embroidered _Patrick_ over the chest kind of gives it away immediately. 

“I didn’t notice!” Pete shouts back, mouth still directed towards his chest. He lets go of the shirt, it’s a little loose but it still clings to his chest.

Patrick appears in the door, and Pete has to shield his eyes from the bright haze surrounding the early morning sun, but he sees him standing there with a blanket wrapped around his upper half.

“Bring it back!”

Pete lurches to the side when Hemingway decides to venture another foot or so, and has to shuffle over slippery-soggy grass just to keep the flip-flops in tact on his feet.

“I’ll be there in like, one sec, just let him—“

He tries to gesture to Hemingway, now standing there with his leg propped up, but he doesn’t think Patrick’s that amused. Pete kinda is.

“I’m already late! Come on!” He yells.

Pete hovers somewhere in-between here and there, trying to decide whether he should risk dragging a only recently trained dog back across the lawn, or fucking with his boyfriend’s schedule.

Dragging the dog, definitely.

He heaves Hemingway back across the yard, peels the work shirt off (it’s just some dusty little bookstore on the corner by the Laundromat that Patrick immediately fell in love with) and hands it over.

.

Patrick’s in his usual morning fog, finally almost halfway out the door, when Pete catches him by the inside of his elbow. He’s still wet from his own shower, with these dog-droopy bangs hanging in his eyes.

“Bonus round,” He challenges, raising his eyebrows.

Patrick doesn’t say anything right away, doesn’t agree or disagree, and Pete knows he’s struggling to think of some kind of reason to do – something – but then he doesn’t move.

“Be excellent to each other,” Pete says, smiling with his eyes but not his mouth.

Hand going slack against the front door knob, Patrick takes a little step back, just enough so he can relax on the arch of his foot.

“Too easy for a bonus round,” He whispers, the little _Patrick_ embroidered on his forest green colored chest brushing up against Pete’s shower damp arm. “How about, ‘you are dealing with the oddity of time travel with the greatest of ease’?”

Pete remembers VHS copies of this movie tangled in the bottom of sleeping bags and stuck behind his mother’s TV, back in a time where TV’s were too heavy to move with less than three people.

“Genghis greatly enjoys Twinkies because of the excellent sugar rush.” Pete’s eyes are flashing this color that reads like a memory to Patrick. “Everything from that movies sounds like a bad Engrish fortune cookie.”

Patrick remembers the shirt he’s wearing, suddenly – his name is _embroidered,_ for christ’s sake – he shifts his foot backwards, again.

“Now I’m really late,” He groans, stepping backwards, out onto the lopsided porch. He leaves Pete inside, standing alongside a dog who always looks at least half asleep, and a row of grass and mud stained sneakers. 

But, forgetting all of that, forgetting everything else, Patrick laughs all the way down the walk way, mostly just trying to ignore the air guitar solo ripping its way across the door frame, and Pete’s fingers.

“I’ll see you after work,” He calls back, half turning around, squinting when the sleepy-rising sun catches his eye.

Pete incorporates an all-encompassing, completely over the top wave into his backstage backwards performance, and kicks the door closed behind him.


End file.
